Russian Roman Abramovich has Chelsea, Man Utd last year fell to US sports tycoon Michael Glazer, and now one of the founder members of the Football League back in 1888, Aston Villa, has become the plaything of credit card supremo Ray Lerner.

The American is reputed to be worth $US1.2bn and already owns the NFL franchise Cleveland Browns in the US.

In a statement to the UK stock exchange, his company Reform Acquisitions Limited confirmed he had passed the point where he is entitled to complete a total buy-out. "RAL has now received valid acceptances of the offer in respect of more than 90 per cent of the Aston Villa shares..." the statement said.

Villa have for more than 20 years been something of a sleeping giant in English football. Will this move see the club rise like Chelsea? Or will the new Villan, turn out to be a villain?

Should Victory coach Ernie Merrick get off the fence and be a little bit more positive in public? After his side's whirlwind start to the season - a league record five wins in succession and victories over the top three teams from the A-League's inaugural season - Victory is sitting pretty atop the table, four points clear of Queensland and eight ahead of third placed Adelaide. Yet still the measured Scotsman refuses to budge from his assertion that the club's aim is merely to "make the finals".

Should the Victory brains trust now be publicly aiming at something a bit higher? Would the be tempting fate by raising the bar for themselves and the players and declaring that they will not be satisfied with anything less than a top two finish (which guarantees the double chance) or the minor premiership, which would ensure their qualification for the Asian Champions League in 2007?

General wisdom is that 31 or 32 points will get a team into the top four. Victory already has 15, so it probably needs to pick up only 16 points out of 16 remaining games (in which 48 points are up for grabs) to make it. Six more wins, even if Victory was to lose 10 of its last 16 matches, would get it to the finals.

But such has been the buzz that the team has created this year that the regular supporters and bandwaggon jumpers along for the ride will not be satisfied by a squad that merely makes up the numbers in the play offs and says that it is just "happy to be there".

I understand Merrick's reluctance to leave himself too many hostages to fortune, and he is not, by nature, a man prone to big pronoucements. When the microphones and tape recorders are switched off, and the notebooks put away, Merrick can be charming (and controversial) as the rest of them - when he trusts the person he is talking to and knows that the issue is off the record

Fair enough and no-one should be forced to perform in a way they would prefer not to just for the benefit of the media.But it is also fair to ask whether there is a wider context in which the currrent day coach has to operate. Given that this is a start up league, do coach's and administrators also have a duty to talk the game up and whip up some excitement, controversey and debate?

Such a view is anathema to some, and I will be accused of being a cheerleader for the motor mouths because I am a journalist who loves a hammy headline for even suggesting such a question should be asked.

Well, yes, of course I love the men who have opinions and express them forcibly. But I am able to separate what I think of people as coaches from how I view them as newspaper fodder. Still, we in the media are not doing too badly where that is concerned as most of the A-League coaches have mastered media 101.

Can Terry Butcher coach well? Who knows - he's only been in his job for a few months. But he is a one man headline machine with his blunt appraisals of players, matches and circumstances and his knack for making funny, often self depracating, remarks about events happening to him and his team.

John Kosmina is another who calls a spade a bloody shovel, while Miron Bleiberg is a master of the quick one liner and the sharp retort which provide perfect grabs for the television. Nick Theodorakopolous is comfortable in front of the media and not averse to the headline grabbing statement, while Lawrie McKinna's willingness to call it like it is also wins him plenty of friends amongst the scribes.

Still, none of it will matter if Victory wins the Grand Final....Ernie will then be entitled to write his own story!

This week Melbourne Victory management announced that the club has signed more than 10,000 members and then it announced it has moved six of the club's remaining eight home matches to Telstra Dome. The first announcement (along with the recent memory of nearly 40,000 fans at Telstra Dome for the now famous round two match against Sydney FC) must have given the club the confidence to execute such a brave move.

This is a great move for the Victory and for football in this state. It is unlikely that Melbourne Victory will again attract 40,000 people to the Telstra Dome as it did for the round two game which ironically was billed as a 'one off spectacular', though it does not need to attract such a large crowd for this move to be a success.

If the Victory can allow a few thousand first time supporters into Telstra Dome that otherwise would have been turned away from Olympic Park, and generate a few extra life long fans from their positive experience, than that will be a success.

A positive experience it will be regardless of the crowd, because, when you add the Melbourne Victory supporters (clearly the best in Australia) with one of Australia's best stadiums in the Telstra Dome, the atmosphere is truly marvellous.

The only thing that can make it better is if the seats at the Telstra Dome are moved in closer to the field of play, as they can be adjusted. It is a costly exercise (apparently costs exceed $40,000 to execute the adjustment) though the re-configuration of the stadium may be worth the expense, seeing it will serve the Victory for six games. Even if Victory management are not prepared to pay for the re-configuration, the Victory fans may still benefit from the closer seating as the Telstra Dome seats will be adjusted for a tri-nations rugby match held at the same venue.

It seems the planets have aligned perfectly for Victory so far this season, as this may be the most opportune time to implement such a brave change; The Victory sits on the top of the table, with a perfect record after four rounds. Melbourne is the first and only club in the A-league thus far to sell 10,000 memberships. Interest in the sport and the league has never been higher, perhaps a continued affect from the World Cup triumph of the Socceroos.

It is never easy for any sporting club to leave its home, especially a young club still establishing an identity like Melbourne Victory, but this seems to be an opportunity that could not be missed and luckily the club has the audacity to take advantage of a combination of fortuitous circumstances.

Melbourne's win in a murky, rain sodden New Zealand leaves them as the only club with a 100 per cent A League record, two points clear at the top of the table and looking, surely, at a sell out when the Central Coast Mariners come to town on Sunday for the round four clash at Olympic Park.

I'm glad that the club has resisted the knee jerk calls to shift the match to Telstra Dome for a number of reasons, particularly the one that soccer should somehow scramble to take advantage of a footy free weekend in Melbourne.

While Sydney is the arch rival and will always draw a big crowd, and Victory has developed a healthy enmity with Adelaide, the Mariners are a different story.

The match at the Dome against the premiers was advertised months in advance.

Everyone knew it was on, knew they would be able to get a ticket, knew this was the game, and the venue, to bring first timers who would not be scared off by the experience.

It was a special night and drew a special crowd. Would playing every game at the Dome be similarly special? I don't think so, at least not at the moment.

Better, surely, to demonstrate that Victory can regularly sell out Olympic Park against opponents like the Mariners, Newcastle and the NZ Knights first before shifting fixtures against the likes of them to a bigger venue. The last thing Victory needs is to pull 17,000 or 18,000 at the Dome a fortnight after 40,000 crammed it for the Sydney match. There are plenty of football sceptics amongst a fearful AFL media who would seize upon that to suggest support for the game is a flash in the pan.

Those who also suggested that the Perth game on September 24 should be transferred to Melbourne because the AFL Preliminary Finals that weekend will be in Adelaide and Sydney and there will be no football action in town are also way off the mark.

To me, that's demeaning to the game and the A-League. The fixture has been worked out months in advance. Television arrangements have also been scheduled. Perth will have sold memberships and corporate tickets on the basis that the game will be held on September 24 and some fans from Victoria may well have already booked airline tickets to WA for the match.

It's not football's fault if AFL junkies have to get their oval ball fix on television. Its the failure of the Victorian clubs to finish high enough up the ladder to win the right to home finals.
Football would cheapen itself to march to the beat of an AFL drum and would be setting a poor precedent if it did.

No Fred, no Alessandro, no Melbourne Victory? I don't think so. Last year this was a team that, shorn of its stars - well, okay Archie Thompson - struggled to compete with the best in the league. This time round it may well be different. The suspended Fred is a player that Ernie Merrick likes, but hopefully Kristian Sarkies will live up to the wraps on him if he is given the chance to fit into the Brazilian's attacking midfield role.

Alessandro is in doubt for the game against the Knights on Sunday, and the coach will delay a decision until game day. But exciting as he is going forward - and notwithstanding the fact that he has won two penalties in two games - it will be interesting to see how someone else, perhaps Adrian Caceres or Vince Lia, might do in that role.

Certainly Melbourne's depth looks greater than at any point last season. It will need to be if it is to get through a 21 game season plus three finals.

Sydney showed this observer enough last weekend, even with ten men, when they dominated passages of play and areas of the pitch, to suggest that they remain the testing material. Any team coached by Terry Butcher will fight and scrap and compete until the end, and the premiers did just that.

They are up against it travelling to Perth with just 15 players for the match with a Glory team whose tails will be up after their win over the Mariners. I think Sydney, even without Dwight Yorke and their raft of injured players (Carney's absence will hurt a lot, admittedly) are good enough to get a result in WA.

Queensland look good, having scored six in two games, and their whole balance is a lot better than it was in the first season. Getting Spase Dilevski back, a player who I believe has an enormous amount of ability, will boost them still more. However I fancy the Mariners can get back to winning form in their first foray for 06/07 in front of their own fans. Laurie McKinna's side is too well organised and too workmanlike to keep missing out.

Adelaide has had a shocking start to the season and will have to live with the ignominy of being the first to ever lose in Auckland to the Knights. But they too will get better. Mike Valkanis' injury will surely see a recall for Angelo Costanzo, and it will be interesting to see how former Dutch winger Bobby Petta shapes up. Newcastle will be in this for a long way but I fancy Adelaide to get off the bottom of the table with a home win at its first Hindmarsh match of the season.

Nearly 40,000 fans made their way to Telstra Dome as the Melbourne Victory defeated Sydney FC 3-2 in a significant night for the A-League. You can send your photos from the historic night to community@theage.com.au or 0406 843 243.

Discuss the night or your favourite photos in the comments section below.

Forty thousand at the Dome, a pulsating match which had it all and Sydney sent home with their tails between their legs. It doesn't get much better for Melbourne fans, does it? But talk of winning the championship and packing out the Dome on a weekly basis is a tad premature. Don't forget, Victory have been here before.

The 5-0 win over the light blues last October sent Melbourne to the top of the A-League table and again sparked talk of titles and premierships, all of which ended in tears when the team sank to the foot of the table and finished up seventh of eight and the worst-placed Australian team in the competition.

This looks unlikely to happen this time. Victory's strength in depth looks much stronger than a year ago and its striking options seem much broader, with Alessandro, Fred and Claudinho there alongside a seemingly reinvigorated Danny Allsopp.

Too often last year Melbourne was reliant on the individual brilliance of Archie Thompson and Richard Kitzbichler to get them out of a hole.

The Bitch has bolted back to Austria, but Archie is still there and although he has yet to get on the scoresheet in the two matches Victory has won he has played a useful creative role. Thompson set up Claudinho and Brebner with gilt-edged opportunities on Saturday night, and although he may not be in the scintillating form he is capable of he is still a handful with his pace and movement and will always need to be watched closely.

Are the Victory the real deal?: Too early to say. This year it looks as if there has been improvement all round and the league could be even tighter than it was 12 months ago.

Sydney will be no pushovers. Even with ten men (after Rudan senselessly got himself dismissed for kicking Alessandro) they took the game to Melbourne and got back into it through Iain Fyfe's goal. For a 20-minute period they actually looked the better team, notwithstanding their numerical disadvantage, as Melbourne withdrew into their shell, dropped off and relied too much on long ball clearances.

This weekend represents an intersting test for Ernie Merrick's team. New Zealand has reached the nosebleed heights of third on the table and remain unbeaten in two home matches, registering their first ever home win against Adelaide on Saturday. Playing the Knights this year will not be the bye it was on 2005-06, and Melbourne can ill afford any complacency.

Melbourne Victory striker Archie Thompson believes his team came of age with its opening round victory over Adelaide last weekend. The club has a golden opportunity to make an even greater impression when it hosts Sydney FC at Telstra Dome on Saturday night. The match promises to attract a league record crowd at a venue usually reserved for AFL footy on Saturday nights. Are you going on Saturday night, if so, are you going for the first time? What are your expectations?